The aim of this publication is to draw attention to the documentary oeuvre of Marek Piasecki (1935-2011), artist, graphic designer, author of installations, heliographs and miniatures, member of the Second Krakow Group. The book comprises a selection of 150 photographs, based on Piasecki’s archive of negatives digitized by the Archeology of Photography Foundation since 2016. While some of the images within the selection are his well-known photojournalistic photographs, the majority are previously unpublished images.
Works on the photographer’s archive carried out by the Foundation have been reflected in the layout and design of the book. On Piasecki’s negatives subsequent frames depict truly diverse topics as if the camera had constantly accompanied the artist, something that was confirmed by the photographer’s wife, Joanna Turowicz-Piasecka. This impression, however, has been conveyed by the arrangement of the book, which departs from the strict divisions into particular themes, and instead, focuses on the repetitive ‘ordinary’ motifs: windows, roofs, views from above, portraits of the artist’s wife, self-portraits, walls, scraps of landscapes, animals returning like refrains in the author’s artistic work. The central place of this composition is given to the artist’s atelier, a vivid microcosmos of crates, boxes, shelves, drawers, photographs, and other items, the space, in which the artist created not only photographs and graphic works but also installations.
The selection of photographs has been complemented by two essays. The article by Agnieszka Rayss, the co-editor of the book, focuses on Piasecki’s work for periodicals and magazines and analyses his photographs in the context of the history of photography from the 1950s and the 1960s. Tomasz Szerszeń dedicated his essay to the photographer’s biography as well as the interpretation of his works. He also gave voice to witnesses who knew Piasecki at the time when particular photos were taken.
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